Fake Facebook News will now be penalized

Facebook has been one of the most effective means of current events, updates, and news of the people here in our country. People have started using it in order to relay messages as a whole – some even use it for the sake of marketing their products, services, and furthermore themselves. But of course, we cannot argue with the fact that sometimes, even the fakest of fake news are being spread out and Senator Francis “KiKo” Pangilinan wants to put a stop on that.

The said senator is now looking to penalilze Facebook and other social media boards for tolerating misinformation to people which is done online. “More than being an online platform, Facebook may be described as a de facto media company or publisher that should be responsible and accountable for the content it distributes and allows to be distributed, in order to protect the national discourse from fabricated and false news,” said Senator Pangilinan.

Being a President of the Liberal Party, this man really knows what he is talking about. He filed Senate Resolution 271 seeking a Senate probe in aid of legislation, with the ending perspective of choosing whether there is a need to modify or amend Republic Act 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act.

“There is a need to look at the systems that protect the freedoms accorded to all Filipinos by our Constitution, especially where those freedoms are being undermined by a surge in social media abuse through the propagation of falsehoods, defamation, character assassination, and national security threats. It is therefore in the interest of the State to protect the integrity of cyberspace so that it will become a tool for development, and not a tool for sowing dissent and virulent tribalism,” said Pangilinan.

The Philippines had 59.2 million internet users in 2016 – 22 million inside those number were actively stumbling upon Facebook during the May national elections. This is the probable reason why information, each time it passes through a number, gets filtered with what other people want to hear. Leading to an act that maybe modified news and updates a little bit. Imagine having news passed around 22 million people, wouldn’t you think that it’s inevitable for some of the things in that certain update change?

With Pangilinan’s decision and intuition to penalize false allegations in social networking sites, people should now be extra careful when they are yearning to spread news because once you are caught, you are now subject to multiple crimes. The only way to put this to an end is to make sure that erroneous information gets avoided and that is by not listening or believing to whatever you see online.